Drake looks at the ground from his new prone position. Drake's head pounds from the repeated psychic assaults. "Ghua... This is... Getting ridiculous." Drake pants out as he begins to drag himself off of the ground. Once standing again. "Is everyone alright?" Drake asks as he looks around to see if the situation has changed any. Drake is wary of the mercenaries by this point and is wiling to fight anyone who gets aggressive.

I CAN'T STAND IT I KNOW YOU PLANNED IT(Ecks, Bri, Drake, Mink, Sel, Marcus, Victor)Marcus attacks the bandits without question, he knows what they are. His first attacks land a gas grenade between the two closest bandits and another one up on the roof where he was imprisoned. He follows it up with a laser blasts at the the guys in front of him. They are choking on the gas and take the laser blasts mostly hit home, striking the bandits and making them keep their heads down.

In the confusion, Sven dives to the ground, Ecks just barely missed him. He clasps his hand over his face as he struggles to avoid the gas and get at his helmet. The bandits generally are thrown into disarray. They stop and stare at Ecks as he starts yelling. In that brief moment, Ecks notices something very very weird, all signs of sickness are gone from the bandits!

"Sel, I've got it locked down back here, is it safe to get back in the cab?" Speakman responds to Sel, his voice quavering just a little. He clearly doesn't like the idea of being caught outside in a firefight!

Sel notices once she gets a decent look, that the Blue Boy isn't Victor's. Glancing up at the Sled, she can see Victor in his new Prophet armor. The new arrival looks fairly new, at least it's not beat up too bad.

Just then Victor does a fairly dramatic leap from the Sled and into the middle of the fray. His presence adds another element for the bandits to consider and some of them shift their attention to Victor. They are a little more sluggish than someone like Victor would expect from mercs or bandits.

The quick pace of the mindstorms has left Bri a little out of sorts. She attempts to do a sensor sweep of the area, but in her haze she shuts the whole system down. She will have to reboot the system and restart each of the sensor suites. It only took a second to mess it all up, but it will be several minutes before Morning Glory can see anything. She can look out the tiny viewport, at least.

Before Mink goes acrobatic, she also notices that the bandits are suddenly healthy again. The only way for that to happen is if the possessing entity was destroyed. How? The timing is circumstantial, but interesting. The change coincided with Bri's mindstorms. But there's no way of telling who was possessed, normally the host is sickly or injured. No one here looks any different.

Her grenade lands in the midst of the dissipating cloud of poison gas, visually obscuring her as she makes her little speech. When she does launch herself into the air, it is cinematic. The cloak adds a whole extra dimension as she flips and twists. She becomes visible again as she lands on the giant robot's dome. Her speech, her grenade, her acrobatics, plus Victor's contribution, and the confusion caused by the newcomer, all contribute to the inaction by the bandits...for the moment.

For Drake, the situation isn't encouraging. He brandishes the particle beam, but doesn't get the chance to use it. There's a cloud of blue smoke in his way but he can still see the two bandits to his left in the cloud of gas, and one to the right is just at the edge of the smoke. The rocket team seems to be recovering on the roof.

BUT I'M GONNA SET IT STRAIGHT THIS WATERGATE(Shane)Daniels drops to the ground unconscious. Shane hears a bunch of commotion, there's and amplified voice:

Mink wrote:"Stand down, anyone who fights dies. You have a power armor and small arms, we have an artillery robot. Be smart. If we wanted you dead, you would be."

I CAN'T STAND ROCKING WHEN I'M HERE(Rose)"My dearie, if you want protein just a moment and I think we can find something. Yes, yes. I'm sure. I think I have some friends nearby." The bobbing and swaying of Maude's head/neck/body is calming, but her voice is like a comfy blanket and a mug of hot chocolate. "Oh, what am I? I don't think we have a name really, not that we know. There aren't many of us here you know. But we don't know where we came from." There is no sadness, just calm acceptance, like a sweet old grandma talking about the days of her youth.

They walk probably three of four blocks, there are no issues or weird encounters, when Maude stops in front of a building. They had been having pleasant conversation about nothing, but now Maude asks, "So, Rose my dear, you called yourself anthro, what do you mean buy that? Your body doesn't look human, but you use all of their machines. I would love to know more."

The lull of conversation was good, soothing and comforting and so relaxing. She found her grip loosing on her pistol and she couldn’t really see a reason to keep it held so tightly. Maude’s voice and movements were all so soothing. Like a good piece of concerto. Her ears, normally erect and swiveling to hear movement were relaxing and turning less frequently. One specifically focused upon her traveling companion. She gave a quiet set of chitters as they walked, more content than the last ones.

“Oh, uh anthro?” she asked, seeming to catch up with the converstation. “Anthro… it uh… it’s an old earth term,” she said, her voice soft. Her father had a love of history and things that were unique and what little she knew of him he’d spent years researching the various animal people. There were so many different slang, some nice and some downright mean. “My dad told me it’s for any species that acts human but isn’t.” She gave a smile. “Like the dog boys those CS jerks send after people.” She looked around at the buildings and then back to her guide. “I grew up in a city where there are other D-bee’s with tech like what I have. Supposedly, if you believe some of them, there are other dimensions with technology so far beyond what we have here…” she shook her head.

The level of technology wasn’t all that important to Rose. It was learning how to use it that was the important thing. If you couldn’t grasp and work out what the tech was you just paid someone to tell you or you worked and worked until you got it. “I’m guessing you don’t have much tech here do you?”

Marcus scowled darkly under his Power Armour. His shots seemed to make their mark - and his grenades definitely seemed to make the Bandit assholes less than useless when it came to firing back - but he was doing a lot less damage than he'd otherwise like. Granted, given the terrain and his obvious advantages the bandits would normally have been little match for him - or any other half decent PA Pilot they happened to come across - but it was those other assholes who gave him pause. Two suits of Armour, apparently, one of which was obviously much higher specced than his...and an artillery suit? Well, that just shat on his entire plan of fucking up the assholes who shot him down, now didn't it? Of course, the fact that they didn't promptly open fire on him suggested that they weren't immediately allied to the Bandits - if they were on the same team, they would have opened fire straight away - which gave him some leeway. At best, they were fresh targets for the Bandits and could be convinced to fire on them. At worst, they were utterly unaware of what the Bandits were and would be taken unawares by the onset of hostilities. Indeed, the fact that one of them seemed to be more concerned with ceasing the attacks than joining in suggested that perhaps he could get out of there with what he needed - Sven - without having to take more fire than he'd originally planned on. Killing every last one of those assholes would be satisfying, yes, but he was far more concerned with getting out alive.

So it was that, as soon as the smoke hit the ground, Marcus was running. He didn't pay any attention to the floating chicks sanctimonious little speech - yeah, fuck her. She either had no idea who these assholes were or she didn't care, and in either case, he had no need to listen to ignorance or apathy - instead using the cover granted by the smoke to hurtle forwards towards where Sven lay. Or rather...where he'd been lying when Marcus had last seen him. One of the other group had attempted to grab him but failed, giving him the opportunity to get him instead; after all, where else would Sven go now that he was curled up on the floor? Assuming that Sven had stayed in a relatively constant position once the bullets flew, he'd be easy to find. He moved towards Sven, stooping low and gripping him by the scruff of his neck, bending low to make himself heard. "Oi, asshole, it's me. Keep your head low and keep moving. We're getting out of this shit show alive, y'hear me?" With that, he backed back off towards the alleyway with his weapons trained on the area in front of him, every so often shooting a glance behind him. He hoped that his Frag had at least disorientated and injured the Bandits on that roof, but if it hadn't...well, he didn't want to be surprised from behind. He hauled Sven into the alley, throwing him around the corner as he hit cover as well, doing his best to cover the angles of approach. They needed to be careful now; one wrong move and everybody ended up shooting at them. And with the firepower out there...surviving that was probably not on the table.

The sudden disappearance of Sven's cold also has him concerned. Mink's mention of an entity dashes all his hopes for a suddenly sunny day. More entities... lovely. So that was what she was talking about earlier.

Hearing Drake's radio transmission, he responds on their secure channel. "Ok enough for now. Watch yourselves"

Ecks grits his teeth as he misses Sven in hopes of getting him out of the line of fire. But a miss isn't good enough for him. He aims to grab him again when a newcomer shows up. It's the armor Vic just called out. As the power armor approaches to grab Sven, Ecks asks "Hold up buddy. He a friend of yours?" He looks to Sven for confirmation. He doesn't know who to trust be he's also not willing to let someone lost and confused to be simply drug off and killed.

Of course. Of fucking course he couldn't do something as simple as extract this useless asshole without some other dickhead getting in the way and ruining shit. Why couldn't anything ever go smoothly for once? Why couldn't he just move in, get what he wanted, then get out? Why did everything have to be so goddamn messy all the time? He growled at the new asshole - one of those bastards who'd been gassing it up with the Bandits; a Bandit himself? Or a third party? He'd have to keep his guard up - but held his fire...for now. He wasn't firing at Marcus, and if this was indeed a third party...well, opening fire and engaging in hostilities with a heavily armed and - going by their cohesion and equipment, likely professional - third group? Well, there was having balls, and then there was just being suicidal. And as much as a reckless hot head as he was, he did actually somewhat enjoy living marginally more than the alternative. He stopped short, a hairs breadth from Sven, and grunted in annoyance. He kept his gun trained on this new asshole, his gaze flickering around briefly at the surrounding Bandits, who were currently holding their asses in both hands.

That confusion wasn't about to last for long, and when assholes got cornered, they tended to shit on whoever was close by. He didn't want to get caught in that crossfire, and he didn't need Sven catching a bullet in the midst of it either. "He's in m' squad, asshole, 'n' I need him t' get outta this shit-hole. Now get th' fuck outta th' way and lemme get him outta this fuckin' warzone before those fuckheads you've been chattin' with shoot at us again. Arright?" He grunted again, and moved forwards, stooping slightly to grab Sven by the collar. "C'mon, asshole. Gettin' us both outta here 'fore this crater 'comes a shootin' gallery." He glanced up at the new asshole. "'less Soldier Boy here wants t' keep shootin' th' shit out inna open like a buncha asshole ducks?" He was not about to let himself get shot because some prick decided he wanted to have a chinwag in the middle of No Mans Land. This asshole wanted to play Parlay with these Bandit assholes? Fine. He was scedaddlin' outta there before his leg filed for divorce from the rest of his body, thank you very much.

Ecks listens to the new arrival's explanation. Behind the emotionless face plate of his customized gladius, Ecks' face is furrowed in concentration. Over his speakers he replies to the new guy. "Sorry, I only speak American, but if he's with you, good enough. Don't forget the MRE's." Over his radio only, he opens his com to the team. "I think the new guy's trying to communicate with us. He was talking about rectums and then he seemed interested in sex. I'm not sure if Sven'll be ok but the guy seems to know him so that's good enough for me." he says with his usual dry humor.

Wasting no time, Ecks runs for the Morning Glory and climbs up as fast as he can. If he can make it inside, he climbs in through the hatch and greets Bri. IF he notices the system issue, he says "Dang... yeah I've done that before. The whole, 'YES, do not delete' error. Usually with this sort of timing."

Frustrated, Brianna curses out loud when she realizes she's accidentally turned off the entire system instead of searching for the targets again. Before she can stop herself, she smacks the control board with the palm of her hand. "Ouch!" Brianna mutters as she waves her now sore hand. Brianna turns the system back on, figuring that it's important to have the sensors, especially when they continue on their way.

If Ecks makes it back inside, she smiles weakly, obviously feeling embarrassed by her error.. "Yeah, I'm booting everything back up but it'll take a few minutes."

While Ecks talks things over with the Blue Boy's pilot, Victor keeps his weapon barrel still pointed in the suits general direction, but with the muzzle mostly aimed at the ground. As the talking continues, Victor takes advantage of the stand-still up close range and inspects the suit. It looks to be in good repair, in fact it looks damn near brand new other then being dirty. 'Not that my new suit here is all that clean anymore', he notes to himself ruefully. Victor doesn't pay any attention to what the pilot says, but instead watches how he moves in the power armor, trying to determine how well trained he is.

Ecks wrote:"I think the new guy's trying to communicate with us. He was talking about rectums and then he seemed interested in sex. I'm not sure if Sven'll be ok but the guy seems to know him so that's good enough for me." he says with his usual dry humor.

"I don't know what a 'wreck tum' is...and my advice is to turn down the sex. Either way, I think we should get out while the getting is good boss.", Victor recommends over the radio, while keeping the Blue Boy and the other mercs covered as best he can while Ecks boards Morning Glory.

"Morning Glory, Mindwarp. Have visual on you, one survivor in tow. Says his name is Daniels and he and his men fought some floating screaming thing of arms and faces. Seems about fucking right for this place.

What the fuck is this shi..."

The world explodes.

Shane screams incoherently over the radio, babbling a word here and there from the hallucinations going on in his mind.

One moment he's trying to figure out what this kind of place is and who Daniels is and how he had looked and looks now when everything goes to pieces. It's like a silent explosion of light and he is then divorced from reality.

.

. .

. . .

"Son, you'll never amount to anything if you leave. That isn't what a Kinnon does. We've never been the people that get the girl, or save the world. We've been the strong silent ones. We make the food everyone needs, do a good job and be content with our contributions. It's just going to be an early death for you if you go away."

. . .

. .

.Well, kid? What do you say? I've heard this and that about you; sounds like you've made it. Forget the Pack Rats and the Rock Machine. Small times. Just a farm, kid. Farming ground for us to find the special people. The tough, the brave, the strong, the smart, and I think you are all of those. What do you say? Power beyond your wildest dreams, money, women, and all you have to do is exactly what I tell you. You want to be a juicer? Five to seven years, sure, but it'll be the best fucking five to seven years you could ever imagine.

.

. .

. . .

Come on! Don't hurt me. Look, I'll give you anything. A hundred thousand credits! A million! What's it to you? Take my hand, I'll buy another one, give it to them and say that's all that's left of me and you got me. Just let me go, please! I'm begging you, I stopped doing that shit a long time ago. I've got kids, and a wife now, and...

Idiot. At least there'll be the money when the kids find the body, a million credits buys a lot of therapy.

. . .

. .

.

... Mister? Did you do that to my father? .... yeah, I did. ......... are you going to do that to me, too? ............... I don't know. I don't want to. I'd not continue the family business if I were you. I'm sorry, son. You weren't supposed to see this..... I hate you. I hate you so much, you've... you've ..... he's dead, he's....Well, you've got every reason right enough on this Earth to hate me. If when you're older...I HATE YOU NOW!Don't try it. Don't. Just don't.I HATE Y..... KKHLHHT. *wheeze*Fucking hell, dumb as your father. I said don't fucking do it kid.You've.... you've killed me too....No, you just killed yourself. I wasn't a willing participant in this at all.

. . .. ..

Shane can see again.

He can see a statue, nothing else, and he's operating on pure autopilot when it fades, screen-door style into Daniels and the world around him at an oblique angle from being on one knee. Somewhere during the hallucinations his finger got off of his radio transmit button, but everything is still swimming.

It's blind luck that has his reflexes activate his see the invisible and.... suddenly it all makes sort of sense. Sort of. But god, he feels awful.

It would be slow for a human, but for being a juicer? It's like being surrounded by molasses. He crawls to where Daniels is, attempting to get his leg around the man's waist and sit on him. He can't stop himself either, his autopilot telling him he has to secure the prisoner. Looking down at him, Shane flicks his wrist and extends his blades; homicidal rage at what he'd been forced to experience welling up. It'd be all too easy to snuff Daniels here and now.

He's thinking about it, long and hard, light glinting off of the three blades before reason finally gets there and he flicks the wrist to retract them, lowering both of his hands and trying to get ahold of Daniel's neck. Weakly (For him) he shakes the battered man.

"What the fuck did you just do to me? What the fuck? What the fuck man, what the fuck was all that shit, what is this shit, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck?!?"

It is entirely not Shane to go to pieces like this. He is Mindwarp, a killer of men and a smooth, experienced operator. But this place already has him on edge and the Mind Storm hit him in that place that even his being a juicer cannot protect him -- his psyche. The small bit of vulnerability that he otherwise has -- guilt. Guilt for his crimes and who he is, and that is why he won't kill Daniels today.

The shaking comes to a stop, and Shane gets on his radio again.

He sounds different, AAPS might realize. Weaker.

"Still here." He transmits, groggily. "Look, I don't know what the fuck is going on, but I've got a severely wounded here. After that shit about the floating screaming thing, I came under some kind of psychic attack. I'm... all right and not at the same time. I'll be fine. Daniels is all fucked up, but that's the weird thing. He was fucked up when I first met him, then suddenly fine, and now he's fucked up again, and just before he passed out he was howling some shit about being betrayed or some shit and this weird green vapor came out his mouth and nose. I don't think I'd have been able to see it without psionic help."

Shane groans, audibly.

"I have no idea if this motherfucker is alive or dead at this point. I'm only a bit away, if you turn the turret around you can probably see me. What the fuck is going on?"

Okay, so it's not a hallucination, this really must be Shane.

OOC: Sorry about the missed post, it just took Shane thirty seconds rather than fifteen to do all this.

Current Characters:Thought: A steely skinned space minotaur of very little brain. (Galactic Adventurers)The Mechanic: An artificial life form with deeply philosophical questions. (The Templar)Shane: A Delphi Juicer on a quest to redeem himself from a dark past. (A.A.P.S.)Miyitowin: A newly created Godling with no idea of who and what she is. (M.A.R.S.)

All things align in a way that allows Mink to get a good look at Shane and Daniels. "I have your location, Mindwarp. I can give a 75% [OOC: or 100% if within 160'] confirmation of the possessing entity in Shane's proximity. Get out of there Mindwarp. Fallback to the rear of the Morning Glory. Bring the formerly possessed. The Mindstorm that knocked it out and likely screwed with you is actually a friendly-fire effect and just saved all our bacon over here then. I'll bring you up to speed in person after hostilities end. One nice thing is immediately after them the rest of Madhaven shuts up." Her tone is all business and her voice is clipped and doesn't betray much of that exaggerated youper accent they've heard so much of. She sounds like what she is - a professional intelligence coordinator and spotter doing her job. 'I hate entities! So gross!' is the only thought set aside for herself.

OOC: If Shooting the thing will help destroy the possessing entity, I have a whole post of attacks from last round that can be applied to that end. They will be accompanied by her jetting off in the direction of the thing, but staying at least 100 feet away from it. If not can you please include ways to end its threat?

The whole situation is irritating to Drake, so he decides to move to deal with his perceived biggest threat. Drake moves towards the Missile team, climbing the mountain of rubble that they're playing king of the hill on. I hope they listen to reason. Drake thinks as his hands and feet look for handholds that won't crumble beneath his grasp. Wouldn't be so bad if I could see clearly through all of this smoke. Though this kinda reminds me of the canyons those bandits were using in Colorodo. That didn't go so well me then either...

Ecks listens to the exchange between Mink and the potentially Shane - Mindwarp. If it's Shane, he may not remember the episode in the magic quarter or how much it has magnified.

"Haul tail Mindwarp. The situation is dicey out here." he radios, adding to Mink's advice.

Ecks looks back to Brianna, "A ball with faces and arms? That seems pleasant. Too bad you don't have control over those. They seem to be crazy effective in here. Any thoughts on how to deal with something like this? The orbs we could extract but these might be a bit more like trying to grab smoke. And I'm betting just killing the guy won't actually destroy the thing."

Sel watched on pins and needles as she waited to hear back from Speakman for confirmation that he made it into the Cargonaut and locked it up. Then chaos expoded across the way as guns were fired and grenades went off and people started jumping around. When he came back on the radio, she realized he was still outside in this shit storm. Damn the gods! He locked it before this started!"I'd high tail your rear end back in here if I were you!" The whole scene made her think back to during her apprenticeship a couple years back.

The shadows grew long in the Kentucky forests where Orog Goroag waited outside his APC converted mobile workstation parked in a clearing while the rest of his group waited at the edge of the clearing. Sel sat in the turret cupola manning the APC's weapon systems when she spots a group approaching from the opposite end of the clearing. "They're here, boss." Sel informs her mentor. From inside his Chipwell Challenger Power Armor that he had heavily modified, he transmitted a simple tone indicated he received the transmission and saw them.

His arms were crossed in such a way that allowed him activate several of the suits features from the control panel on the suit's arm. The main force of the group coming to meet them parked at the other end while a Mountaineer continued driving until it parked 30 feet in front of Orog.

They talked for a few minutes as tensions started to rise and then rail gun fire barked out toward Orog, but he dived out of the way easily thanks to the Combat Precognition mod he had activated along with a magical force field, enhanced speed, and combat warrior program.

He rushed the crew that came out of the Mountaineer first, his vibro-swords flashing out of their scabbards. Sel fired the turret at the ground between the Mountaineer and the rest of their group, TW grenades exploding releasing clouds of smoke that also blocked infrared emissions and UV light, making it impossible for the rest of the Mountaineer's crew to shoot without having a huge chance of hitting their own guys. The rest of Orog's group started moving in preparing for when the opposing crew crosses through the smoke. The Mountaineer crew lost three out of five members in under 15 seconds. They grudgingly accepted their losses and left, leaving the the ruined armor of the three that Orog had killed as compensation for the trouble of attacking them.

Read Sensory Equipment 1d100 = 22/57%

Sel is watching the electronic readouts when she notices the Morning Glory's radar goes off line. "Hey boss, everything alright up there? Do you need me to beam info to you?"

If Ecks wants/can receive sensor readouts from Staci, Sel with beam the data to Morning Glory so they aren't totally blind, as well as calculating targeting offsets for Morning Glory's gun taking into account the difference of relative positions.

Victor keeps up with Ecks to the base of Morning Glory, maintaining an eye on the mercs. "So, what's the plan boss?", he asks as he takes up a defensive position between Morning Glory's legs. He takes a moment to fix the Ripper bayonet to the end of his rifle...just in case.

Ecks hears Sel and Victor radioing, responding to them both, "Sel, anything you've got on sensors would be great. Morning Glory's sensors will be down a bit. Vic, keep your eyes open. I think the Blue Boy is a non issue. I want those wheels and am willing to test this situation.

HIT YOU WITH SIXTEEN SHOTS AND MORE I GOT(Ecks, Bri, Drake, Mink, Sel, Marcus, Victor, Shane)Essentially this is what happens: AAPS postures and acts threatening. Marcus is kind of a jerk to everyone, understandable given the circumstances. Drake tries to get up to the rocket team, but he's a second too late. The rocket team launches a rocket, apparently aimed right at Sven. He blows up, his suit of armor somewhat damaged, but his head is completely gone. Ecks and Marcus are caught in the blast as well, but the armor piercing projectile does not create a lot of shrapnel. Especially hitting a meaty target like a head. Shane drags Daniels around the corner in time to see this happen. Daniels is squirming weakly, groaning unintelligible words. Sel works the controls in Staci, transmitting data to Morning Glory.

The thing is, and only Bri, Victor and Mink notice this, is that there is only one functioning bandit on the ground, and the two on the roof are furiously trying to reload the rocket launcher. That fellow shoots at Ecks, perhaps foolishly making himself the aggressor, if the rocket hadn't already raised that flag. Marcus shoots him in return, damaging the bandit's Gladius armor, but not taking him out. After taking the damage the guy pauses to find his helmet. Then he fires at Marcus.

Victor knows a stock Blue Boy when he sees one, and this one isn't special. The pilot isn't bad though, and he showed some good situational awareness launching a gas attack on the vulnerable bandits.

From the massive dome at the top of Morning Glory, Bri doesn't have a bad view looking out the small viewports. She can see over some of the nearby rubble piles that once were buildings, and importantly, doesn't see any more bandits. She can also confirm that it's Shane approaching, no one else looks like that fellow, festooned in weapons and a giant dome of his own.

Drake, maybe pissed because he was too late to save whoever that poor sap was that just got his head blown off, leaps up to the roof to confront the rocket team. They don't surrender. So Drake demolishes them at close range with the particle beam rifle. Demolish, no, he turns them to ash with boots quivering on the deck.

Oh Shane. Shane. Shane. Shane. My goodness. Shane finds Morning Glory, but is totally oblivious to all else. He's all, "oooh, finally, I found them!" at the expense of all other awareness. He is holding Daniels like a rag doll, the 250+ pounds of human and gear almost nothing to the crazy juicer. The wounded man struggles, but lost in his fugue Shane doesn't pay any attention. Man, this place. It is totally messing with the smooth operator's smooth operation.

Shane's not the only one with disorienting flashbacks. Sel is focusing on shaking her own memories from her head by doing technical mumbo jumbo, the comfort of logic. She startled when Speakman leaps back inside the cab, giving Sel a wan smile, the "wtf" smile. Sel can tell the big bot's sensor system is still rebooting, but its radio and other comms are on separate system from the sensors so the link is established, but no data is displayed yet in the robot's array of screens.

Mink, probably good that someone is, perceives the entire situation in minute detail. The pieces are plain. She's not putting a puzzle together, it's as simple as putting the square peg in the square hole. Entities. They are nasty things. She breaks the situation down. Daniels, if indeed Shane's report is true, was the carrier, for some reason he volunteered to host the contagion entity. That he was making his way towards these bandits, that indicates that they were his target and the malicious bastard wanted to watch them suffer and die. He was so friendly to Shane in hopes of affecting him as well. Now, there are two ways to deal with a contagion entity. One, an exorcism, which has only a 50-50 chance of success and a few other drawbacks. Two, kill the carrier. This isn't as simple as it seems. The carrier must be completely immolated for the entity to be truly banished. Blowing up the carrier is a bad idea, it will banish the entity from the dead host, but not from the mortal plane. And in addition, the sickness doesn't end until the entity is banished for good. As a spectral entity, it is subject to the typical magic and psionic attacks, but that's no fun to engage an entity in combat like that. Based on what Shane described and what Mink does not see, the entity was likely banished for good by Bri's mindstorm. The quick recovery from the sickness also supports that theory. All in all, Bri's mindstorms are the best anti-entity weapon at their disposal.

Which isn't very comforting when another mindstorm hits. Shane is knocked on his ass, dropping Daniels. Marcus experiences it again, a feeling he's never even imagined and probably never will forget. It's even worse than the pervasive psychic torment from just being in this place. For the rest of AAPS, well, calling it old hat doesn't do it justice, but they've been through it before. It's like being stabbed at random intervals, it's not a surprise, but it still hurts like a mother...

This time they are out for four minutes! Morning Glory's systems are completely rebooted and processing the data from Staci. The remaining bandit gives up.

GOING TO WAR WITH THE MELTING POT HOT(Rose)"Very interesting, hehe, not human but acts like one." Maude chuckles lightly at the definition. She swivels her long neck or body to face Rose, and says, exposing oddly human like teeth within those uncannily human lips, "Does that mean I would be an anthro too?" She motions to the boots and pants. Then she smiles. "No, I'm just making a joke. I just like pants and boots." She motions into the building. It's dim inside, but it's clearly a camp or temporary resting place. Many human like tools and other gear are piled at random in the corners or on the tables and chairs inside. A dirt mattress is the the only horizontal surface not pile in crap.

Maude rustles around in a large backpack and pulls out cloth wrapper. It's a bit greasy, but as she unfolds it, the reason makes it less gross. There are several thick pieces of jerky in the wrapper. It's paler than the beef jerky one normally sees, more akin to a pork or bacon jerky. The strips seem to be longer than most jerky she's seen.

She picks up a strange shift in emotion from the caterpillar person too. It's subtle, but it's gone from an pervasive helpfulness to something more...conniving.

There's a oven and range in the next room. The meat and bones on the stove seem like their from a larger animal...human sized maybe.

Rose can't tell for sure, it's hard to know in this place, but some sort of psychic bomb went off nearby. Maude notices it too and frowns.

There was a moment of tension as he stared at Soldier Boy - along with a few barely heard snide comments that Marcus would ordinarily have snarked back at, but given the situation, it was probably best to bite his tongue and focus on getting out of the direct line of sight of the Rocket Team on the building - and Soldier Boy looked back, as if deciding whether or not to take issue with Marcus's actions. The moment stretched for longer than Marcus would have liked, but eventually - fucking mercifully - Soldier Boy eventually nodded, and Marcus bent to his task, attempting to cajole and drag Sven out of the direct line of fire. If he could get him into the alleyways that littered these blasted, God-forsaken ruins, they might actually have a chance. Not a huge one, but...well, any chance was better than no chance, right? Alas, 'twas not to be. As soon as he began to drag Sven out of the area, all hell broke loose. Marcus heard the telltale sound of ignition and rocket propulsion a moment too late, and even as he was halfway through turning on the spot, the rocket had already whistled past him and struck Sven square in the skull, the resulting explosion of fire and smoke also smattered with a generous helping of skull fragment and the fine red mist of vaporized blood, hanging in the air as if surprised at its previous owners sudden demise. Marcus let out a growl of sharp frustration and anger, swearing loudly and unintelligibly at the sudden death.

Sven had been an asshole, but he'd not been a bad asshole, and losing him so suddenly was...annoying, to say the least. He hadn't known the guy all that long - so he'd be lying if he said he missed him or was sad he was dead; see enough people die, and you tend to get a little jaded towards death as a whole - but the loss was aggravating all the same. Through the cloud of likely acrid smoke he heard the rattle of gunfire and - focusing on the source, the lone bandit left on the ground between him and Soldier Boy (the daft fuck) - he squeezed the trigger of his rifle. He growled as he opened fire, taking out at least some of his anger on the lone bastard on the ground. Alas, it didn't finish him and he felt the rattle of return fire soon enough, but he didn't get the chance to see if it actually did any serious damage because - as was becoming exceedingly old hat for this fucking place - he felt a sudden, sharp presence in his head. He staggered to his knees in surprise, rifle dropping to the ground as his hand reflexively went to cradle his forehead, thousands of stinging needles piercing his brain and scratching at his eyes. His vision swam in place, his ears ringing as the headache threatened to split his skull much like what had just happened to Sven, the smoke no longer even visible through the hazy, barely-distinguishable shapes in his vision. He squeezed his eyes shut to try and force the pain away, but the pain only rose, the pressure inside his head increasing to almost bursting point...and then it was gone.

He groaned softly, cracking his eyes open as he was hit by a sudden nauseous wave of vertigo as his brain realised with a swift self correction after a moment of confusion that his center of gravity had changed drastically since his last conscious thought. His eyes focused on the sky above, smoke still wafting gently from around them, distant sounds of screaming and gunfire and all that happy, positive shit that he'd come to expect from Madhaven in the distance. He groaned again, stirring on his perch of blasted rubble and rocks as he checked his Armours systems. Everything seemed ok, but...apparently, he'd been out for just under five minutes. So that psychic attack - because no way was it anything else - had laid him out for five minutes? Fuck. He felt a rising tide of rage at the realisation. Fucking again?! This was getting fucking old, fucking fast! Fighting a fresh wave of nausea, he forced himself into a sitting position - spotting his rifle sitting nearby and picking it up, stowing it on his back - and hauled himself to his feet. "Fuckin' psychic bullshit..." He muttered under his breath. Honestly, this was starting to piss him off something fucking fierce. The sooner he got the fuck out of this hellhole, the better. "Fuckin' Madhaven, fuckin' bullshit psychic crap...gonna make me fuckin' symp'thise with th' fuckin' Coalition, I swear to fuckin'..." He grumbled under his breath.

He creaked to his feet, dusting off his armour as he cast his gaze around, taking in the situation...it seemed like everybody had been hit, and the Bandits who'd previously been making such a fucking nuisance of themselves were pretty much all neutralised...except for one pleading, pathetic bastard on the ground, the same one that he'd shot and who'd presumably been holding Sven captive. The fact that he'd been laid out too made it fairly obvious that he probably wasn't behind the psychic storms, but fuck it...Sven was dead, his ride out of here was likely trashed, he'd just been laid out for the second fucking time and he needed something to make him feel better. Something to make him feel like the Universe wasn't shitting on him completely today. Drawing his sword, he stalked over towards the prostate bandit. He stooped, gripping the bandit in his right hand, and slammed him back into the ground. Straightening, he shifted his Vibro-sword to his right hand and pressed it against the Bandits throat. "Listen, fuckface. I've had one fuckin' bitch of a day, 'n it all start'd with you 'n y'r fuckin' rocket bullshit. Gimme a fuckin' excuse. I'm fuckin' beggin' y'." He growled, casting a glance over his shoulder.

Well...Mech Boy and Soldier Boy didn't fire on him during the fight, so apparently they weren't with the Bandits. That was a small mercy, he supposed. "Soldier Boy," He growled over his shoulder, "I'd 'ppreciate it if y' c'n tell me who's doin' this Psy-bullshit so I c'n get 'em to pack their shit in 'fore I get the fuck outta dodge. I feel like a lobotomy'd solve the fuckin' problem pretty damn quickly." He looked back down at the Bandit. Goddamnit, how he wanted to just...slide the fucking sword through and get some goddamn catharsis out of this whole fuckin' mess, but...gah, no. They needed to know if he knew anything, or if there were more Bandits nearby...and he was unarmed and surrendering, of course, and these assholes seemed like the do-gooder type...and the last thing he fucking needed was some better armed goody two shoes asshole taking enough of an issue with him to open fire. His grip tightened on his sword, but he restrained himself. For now, anyway. The slightest movement...just...one damn movement was all he needed.

OOC Comments

Perception:1d20 = 20

Initiative:1d20+2 = 15

Action 1: Stand up, stow the rifle.Action 2: Drawing his sword, move towards the Bandit, slamming him to keep him on the ground.Action 3-7 Talk. If Marcus is fired upon, respond with appropriate weapon. Thumper Laser for ranged aggressors, Vibrosword for melee. If the Bandit attempts escape, kill him.

The Fennmink gave a chuckle and nodded towards Maude, her ears relaxing just a bit more. “Well it’s a loose term so you could apply it to yourself.” She pauses as the caterpillar motions inside, being almost double her in size maybe more. It was hard to tell with the way it bobbed, weaved and swayed. Rose took a second to get her bearings; she didn’t want to get lost here in a city she didn’t know. As nice as this creature was being it was only prudent not to be at the mercy of another’s directions back to her bike. That was her ticket out of this place, she couldn’t lose track of that. If she did she’d never get out of this strange ruin.

“So who or what else lives here in this place, Maude?” She followed behind and into the room stacked high with items. “Wow… you’ve gotta lot of stuff here.” She turns and gives a grin. “Bet you find all sorts of stuff here in these ruins. Mind if I take a look to see what you’ve got?” Rose casually looks through the top layers of things for anything of interest while her host withdraws something from a greasy cloth. She hoped, really hoped, her face didn’t show at the sight of the wrapper. She took a light sniff towards it. “I’m guessing those aren’t from… rats.”

She kept her face passive, that jerky didn’t look right. Something was off. And the flicker of emotion from Maude. Rose’s ears perked back up and began to swivel around the room tracking. What was that sort of emotion? She took a second to analyze it. Being a creature with such an emphatic link towards others it was hard not to pick up on subtle emotional changes. From happy and helpful to… yeah… that was defiantly a sneaky or underhanded emotion. She really hoped that her bike was going to be there when she got back. She was going to feel like the biggest idiot if Maude had led her away from her bike for the D-Bee's crew to steal the vehicle. That probably explained all the gear here in the room, stolen from other travelers. She mentally grimaced and chided herself. The flicker of emotion might be other reasons, she shouldn't judge just by that. She'd want someone to hear her out and so she'd do the same with this polite stranger.

Glancing to the side into the kitchen Rose wondered what that sort of creature was. They were big bones. Like a cow or horse or something, maybe a little smaller. But she’d not seen anything but the giant worms, rats, birds and Maude. There had to be others around but what or who they were the caseman couldn’t say. But something was tickling the back of her ears and that didn’t make sense. “Well, thank you for--“ Rose’s ears began twitching and swiveling in a hurry and without thinking about it she drew her pistol as she tried to determine what the heck just went off. “Did you feel that?” It was like a shockwave of psychic energy. She'd never felt anything like that before. And she wasn't anywhere close to it. Imagine if she'd been in it? She shuddered and realized she'd probably be out for the count. So too would any that were in that area.

She turned towards the door. “Like a psychic explosion… we should go see what it is. See if anyone needs help.” She turned back to the D-Bee, a worried expression on her face. It looked like her host had felt it to. Whatever that was they’d probably better check it out together.

Victor trains his rifle on the captive merc/bandit and moves toward the Blue Boy unit, "Would you mind getting his helmet off? I want to run an ident search on him.", he asks over his suits externals. Not having any handcuffs or even rope on hand, Victor looks around the general junk on the ground for anything to secure the prisoners hands with, once found he hands it over to the Blue Boy's pilot. While searching for impromptu bindings, Victor asks the Prophets computer, "Scan for facial recognition and any identifying marks", this is assuming that Marcus goes along with removing the guys helmet. Waiting for the computer to do it's thing he then gets on the radio, "Ecks, what do we do with this guy? Aaand are we letting little boy blue here keep the bandit?". "Uh, did you want to hang onto him or interrogate him...?", Victor thinks to ask Marcus as an after thought.

The psychic blast knocks Drake off his feet like all the rest, when he finally comes to Drake lurches up from the dirty rubble he had been standing upon. Once on his feet Drake looks melancholy. Does this madness cause everyone to forget the common sense surrender to the guy holding the big gun? Drake thinks as he looks out over the landscape. "Rocket team is done, they wouldn't surrender." Drake says his voice almost sad sounding. Not having any other reason to be on the top of the rubble pile, Drake climbs back down and goes to the tires he had spotted. Might as get these while I'm here. Drake works to get the tires off of the broken vehicles they're attached to. (Automotive Mechanics 1d100 = 75/55% Fail?)

Maniacal Laugh wrote:Shane's not the only one with disorienting flashbacks. Sel is focusing on shaking her own memories from her head by doing technical mumbo jumbo, the comfort of logic. She startled when Speakman leaps back inside the cab, giving Sel a wan smile, the "wtf" smile. Sel can tell the big bot's sensor system is still rebooting, but its radio and other comms are on separate system from the sensors so the link is established, but no data is displayed yet in the robot's array of screens.

"Alright Bri, you ought to be receiving the data... now!"" Sel exclaims as she hits the transmit button. Seconds after beginning the transmission, her whole wold turns upside down as she gets slammed with another Mindstorm. To help her concentrate, she runs power armor specifications through her head. (Robot Mechanics 1d100 = 2/47%)

"Hey there Speakman, how you hanging in there?" Sel asks him groggily. She checks on the data link and confirms that it finally connected. "Hey Bri, you should be reading data from Staci right now, can you confirm?" the elf inquired. If Bri mentions the monitors not working, Sel will walk her through the steps to getting the monitors again. (Computer Repair 1d100 = 53/57%)

Marcus glanced over his shoulder at the other Power Armour. More advanced - if that was the right word - than his own, which was pretty much standard issue, so...perhaps not the best thing to pick a fight with. Especially with his mates nearby. He was lucky, in that case, that he hadn't been with the Bandits when he attacked or this whole thing could have gone much, much worse. His eyes flickered down to where Svens body was lying, and his grimace twisted further inside his helmet. Sven was an asshole, but...he hadn't deserved to die, and certainly not the way he had, on the ground in a cloud of teargas with an exploding head. At least the fucking thing had been quick. His eyes returned to the Pilot, and he growled under his breath. They weren't shooting at him, which was a good thing at least. He turned his head back towards the bandit. Did he want to keep him or interrogate him? What kind of stupid fucking question was that?

He slammed the Bandit against the building again - though not hard enough to knock him out; he needed him conscious - and grunted. "Both," He said simply, his hand shifting from the Bandits shoulder to his head to pull off his helmet and throw it aside. After a moments thought, he began to strip him of his armour as best he could, too, searching for hidden weapons in all of the usual spots as he went. He didn't need any surprises, as pathetic and desperate as they might be. He kept half an eye on the Bandits face as he worked, pressing the blade against his throat more tightly. "So. Who th' fuck are y', why did y' shoot down m' ride, and what th' fuck is goin' on wi' this psychic bullshit?" The Bandit, judging by his look, was extremely unlikely to know anything...but it never hurt to ask, no?

RUNNING OUT OF TIME(Ecks, Bri, Drake, Mink, Sel, Marcus, Victor, Shane)Tension permeates the air around AAPS and the other characters scattered about the remains of an intersection. To the newcomer, Marcus, the psychic storms are unexplainable and without precedent in his life. The bandits seem to have the same reaction, first the one, and then the rest of them surrender as the gas cloud dissipates. Now, AAPS has three prisoners and one very angry young man in a Blue Boy to deal with.

"We's just survivin', that's it. No harm, if you know what I mean, bro." the bandit stammers out a nonsensical answer to Marcus' questions. "We was so sick, hungry, you been there, eh?" He's quivering some.

Victor's approach isn't unnoticed by the bandit, he shakes a little harder. When Marcus rips his helmet off, the guy goes limp. There are not that many places that keep good records, good enough for facial recognition. There are a few though. And Free Quebec is one of them, and that's where this guy's from. He is indeed associated with a crew of known associates. They are nominally a mercenary outfit, but they're reputation is for doing a lot of dirty work too.

Drake walks past the scene with the bandit and the power armor duo and heads down the side street towards the junk pile. The whole street is a junk pile, really. It doesn't take him long to cover the hundred or so feet to get to the tires. He notices along the way that nothing seems like it's from a whole vehicle, just bits and pieces, like scrap in a junk yard, rather than a vehicle graveyard. Approaching the tires, there are several large tires that might due, but the various hub configurations, wheel sizes and other minutia about the non-standard tires that each manufacturer on the continent seems intent on producing and steadfastly refusing to standardize. He could probably carry one at a time, no problem. Not so much because of the weight, but they are just too big to get his arms around.

Sitting behind the wheel of Staci, Sel is trying to recover from the mindstorm, yet another mindstorm. It's not totally counterproductive though, her knowledge of 'bots gives her something to study and she is able to suss out some of the technical details to help Bri restarting all the systems, even maybe some ideas to talk to Ecks about making things a little more...bulletproof for the operators. Speakman is huffing and puffing in the seat next to her. "This place...it isn't, it's not, anything at all like I imagined. The buzzing. It's so persistent."

I REALLY THOUGHT YOU WERE ON MY SIDE(Rose)Oh, yes, deary, there there are so many strange creatures here," Maude says, with a slight charming little giggle. "I spend my days finding and helping as many people as I can, so naturally I find lots of interesting things." The caterpillar person waves its head around in a slight circle, extending it up almost straight. The top of its almost brushes the ceiling.

Maude chuckles again, "You have no idea the size of rats we have here, do you honey. Well, you've seen the worms, well there are rats just as big. The mutants, have you met any of them yet, tend to like to eat the rats and worms. The rats aren't half bad though, smoked maybe." Looking back to Rose, motioning for her to explore, Maude answers one more question. "Oh yes, those psychic explosions have been going all day, I have no idea what could cause such a thing. Seems like they are moving into the city."

As Rose turns her back to peer into the kitchen, all her psychic alarms go off. First it's the flash of desperate hunger that comes from Maude, then Rose's danger sense kicks in and as he turns back, she sees those oddly human like teeth going for Rose's face.

Ecks hovers over Sven's body for a moment before following behind Marcus to hear what the bandit has to say. Still gathering his wits, he responds to Drake and Victor.

"Copy that Drake. Anything worth salvaging? Victor, let's see what's he's got to say. His pal just lost his head and these bandits haven't done much to put me in their corner." Ecks says, thinking back to Peta's death, the disappearance of Nic, Connor and the couple left at Last Resort. Maybe some of the others are still alive, but Peta most certainly wasn't. While not one for torture, he does understand justice.